When I see birches bend to left and right Across the line of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.

Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged at the trunk and that is why.

I will be gone soon. But I’ll be back again, To peer into the glistening woods and find Where you have stood and laughed among the trees, And tell them once again about your days, And be just as a boy once swung in them.

• Robert Frost